A Napier man who drifted around blind corners and in front of traffic evaded arrest until his mate posted a video of his driving on YouTube.

More than 600 people watched Jason Sky A'Court drive dangerously through Napier residential streets in the internet clip before police learned of it, Napier District Court heard yesterday.

Police had been looking for the driver of a Nissan Skyline since people complained about seeing the speeding car being driven erratically on March 15.

When police caught up with 25-year-old, he apologised and said he was in a "bad head space" that day.

A passenger in his car at the time filmed A'Court spinning his wheels and drifting across the road in front of oncoming vehicles. Drivers had to pull to the left to avoid colliding with his car, police prosecutor Chris Flood told the court.

He lost traction on roundabouts and, at one point, lost control of the car and spun 360 degrees.

The roads were slippery from heavy rain and visibility was poor when A'Court drove through residential streets for half an hour, just after 6pm. Many families would have been at home with young children at the time, Flood said.

In court yesterday A'Court pleaded guilty to reckless driving. He also admitted failing to stop for police in another incident and breaching his community work.

Judge Geoff Rea said it was an appalling piece of driving.

"You are very fortunate you did not injure somebody or yourself. You put a considerable amount of people at risk."

Rea sentenced A'Court to 300 hours' community work on top of the 82 hours he still had to complete from a previous sentence.

He also warned A'Court that he would go to "straight to jail" if he did not complete the sentence. A'Court was also disqualified from driving for nine months.

Outside court, A'Court denied he was boy racer and instead called himself a drifter. He practised on the roads because tracks were too expensive. However, he admitted he would rather fork out the cash in future than complete a community work sentence.

A'Court said he "wouldn't be so silly" as to post the video online but had a mate to thank for that.

By yesterday afternoon, the video had about 18,000 people views. It was posted four months ago.